US military ends cyclone aid mission to Bangladesh

DHAKA - Bangladesh's armed forces bid farewell on Friday to U.S. Marines and sailors who had helped in a daunting emergency relief operation after a killer cyclone ravaged the low-lying country's coasts last month.

"We did something special. We saved lives," said Marine Brigadier General Ronald L. Bailey at the farewell ceremony at Dhaka army headquarters.

The U.S. military aid mission in Bangladesh started on November 23, a week after Cyclone Sidr struck the impoverished south Asian country, killing more than 3,200 and leaving millions homeless.

Bangladesh and U.S. officials said the U.S. soldiers would leave Bangladesh in two or three days after a final pack-up.

They arrived onboard two helicopter-carrying navy vessels, USS Kearsarge and USS Tarawa.

The marines flew food, water, medicine, clothes and blankets to remote areas battered by Sidr, the strongest cyclone since 1991 when a storm killed around 143,000 Bangladeshis.

Bangladesh army officials praised the U.S. military for their humanitarian effort.

"You shall be leaving Bangladesh, but marks of your presence will remain in the sands of our coast and of course in the depth of hearts of millions of suffering humanity," Lieutenant-General Masud Uddin Chowdhury told his U.S. counterparts on Friday.

Some analysts had said the U.S. mission could ruffle feathers in Muslim Bangladesh, where the U.S.-led war in Iraq has been unpopular, and in neighbouring India, which has long been wary of a U.S. Navy presence in the Indian Ocean area.

"The visit of the U.S. navy did not provoke any sensitivity in the region as it was not a truly military operation," retired Bangladesh army major-general, Syed Mohammad Ibrahim, said on Friday.

"Only those who sniff out wrong in anything may have looked at this mission with suspicion. But on the ground it was a tremendous humanitarian effort and we are quite comfortable."

The departure of the U.S. marines and troops marks the end of the relief operations and the beginning of the rebuilding and rehabilitation effort.

The death toll from the storm stood at 3,295 as of Wednesday, with another 871 people missing and 52,810 injured, said the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs. More than 8.7 million people were in need of some aid, the office said.

"Large numbers of affected populations continue to live in makeshift camps while they are making efforts to rebuild their lives," a statement from the U.N. Children's Fund said.